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AN ADDRESS 
DELIVERED JUNE T, 190£ 



WILLIAM H. COR BIN 



t the UnveiUng by the State Commjs^loner* of 

Tablet placed upop th© Connecticut farms 

resbyterian Church, Uniorv County, N. J., in 

ommetnoration of ttje Battle of June 7, 1780. 



CONNECTICUT FARMS 



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AN ADDRESS 
DELIVERED JUNE T. 1905 



BY 



WILLIAM Hv' COR BIN 



n^ 



At the Unveiling by the State Commissioners of 
a Tablet placed upoQ the Connecticut Farms 
Presbyterian Church, Union County, N. J., in 
commemoration of thje Battle of June 7, 1780. 



J^^iS, 



Ep41 






CONNECTICUT FARMS 



AS the good people of this Church will doubtless recall, 
your congreg-ation was, one hundred and twenty-five 
years ago to-day, without a pastor. For the forty 
years of their peaceful existence as a church your fathers 
had been under the stated teaching of Godly ministers, but 
a year before the day which we now celebrate, their pastor, 
the Rev. Benjamin Hait, had gone to his reward, and they 
had not yet found another. Their parsonage was vacant. 
The times were full of peril and distress; your brethren at 
Elizabeth Town were in sore trouble ; you had here a church 
and parsonage without a minister ; they had a minister — a 
rare good one — but, alas, no church home and no parsonage. 
Their parsonage first, and then their meeting house, had 
both been burned to the ground by armed midnight marau- 
ders while they, terrified, indignant and helpless, watched 
the wicked destruction of the flames. So your vacant par- 
sonage was tendered to the Rev. James Caldwell, pastor 
of the Elizabeth Town Church, and he came here with his 
worthy wife, Hannah Ogden, and his nine small children, 
and occupied your house. 

Little did your fathers think that their quiet homes, far 
back among the hills, and their little church would soon be 
desecrated, pillaged and destroyed, and that, too, not in the 
dark, by half organized bands of foragers, but in broad day- 
light, by stately English brio^ades, commanded by the gen- 
erals of the King. 

James Caldwell was not only a pastor, but Chaplain to 
the whole Essex County Church Militant. His chief busi- 
ness in the Revolution was with the troops, praying and 
preaching to the battalions, to be sure, and bestowing his 
pious offices upon the wounded and the dead ; but still, more 



notably, stirring up in the people and their officers and 
leaders a spirit of devotion to the cause of independence, 
instructing them in the meaning of the conflict, and arousing 
their enthusiasm and courage to the pitch of enduring hard- 
ness as good soldiers. 

In the early morning of this day, 1780, rumors were 
not lacking of the advance of the British troops, and the 
parson, anxious for the safety of his family, gathered the 
little ones together to remove them farther back into the 
hills where the Continental forces lay. Mrs. Caldwell de- 
termined to stay, and, with the two smallest of the Uttle 
ones, remained at the parsonage while the parson hastened 
with the others to the Short Hills and bestowed them there. 

But the Parson's was not the only anxious household 
that morning. By a recent law of the State, one-half of 
all the men were always to be on duty for the defence of 
Elizabeth Town, Newark and other important points, and 
all the rest were enrolled in the militia, and subject to instant 
call in case of invasion. Such a call was now made. The 
signals at Short Hills were fired, and every man in every 
house was slinging on his powder-horn and taking down 
his gun, and, after hasty directions to his family, was 
hurrying to the meeting place of his company. There was 
no hesitation, no holding back. The events of the past five 
years had taught them to be ready and to be quick. They 
had gone out again and again to fight the battles of their 
neighbors of Elizabeth, Amboy, Woodbridge, Newark and 
beyond, and now that their own day had come, they would, 
of all the days, not fail. 

General Washington afterwards said of them : 

"The militia deserve everything that can be said on 
both occasions. They flew to arms universally, and acted 
with a spirit equal to anything I have seen in the course 
of the war." 

You know the familiar story of the battle. Major- 
General Knyphausen, with 6,000 troops, crossed Staten 
Island Sound on the evening of June 6th, to Elizabeth 
Town, and, at daybreak the next morning, formed in three 



imposing brigades, with abundant artillery and cavalry, and 
took up the march from Elizabeth Town Point towards 
this place. 

The young brigadier, Lord Stirling, rode at the head 
of the column, the same who, as Colonel Stirling, had the 
year before led the invading party which, at night, had 
burned the barracks, the Academy and the parsonage at 
Elizabeth Town. 

Against this brave array Colonel Dayton had stationed a 
guard of twelve men at the Cross Foads, in Elizabeth, 
while he mustered all the rest of the militia and hastened 
back towards this place, where he designed to make a stand. 

As Gen. Knyphausen's column drew near, the twelve 
sturdy fellows at the Cross Roads fired and brought the 
column at a halt, mortally wounding the young General 
Stirling. The column soon resumed its advance, marching 
through the village of Elizabeth. An eye-witness describes 
it as one of the most beautiful sights he ever beheld. "In 
the van marched a squadron of dragoons of Simcoe's Regi- 
ment, known as the 'Queen's Rangers,' with drawn swords 
and glittering helms, mounted on large and beautiful 
horses ; then followed the infantry, composed of Hessians 
and English troops, the whole amounting to nearly 6,ooo 
men, and every man, horseman and foot clad in new uni- 
forms, complete in panoply and gorgeous with burnished 
brass and polished steel." The famous Coldstream Guards 
Regiment of the British regular army, which is, to this 
day, the show regiment of London, was in the line. The 
three heavy bridages, under Generals Knyphausen, ^lathew 
and Tryon, moved ponderously forward, a brilliant and 
overpowering spectacle, such as these parts have never seen 
before nor since. 

But there were few to see it at Elizabeth Town. Those 
who did, looked out from their shattered homes over the 
ashes of their church and school and Court House, over 
gardens and orchards, wasted and ruined, over trampled 
fields and destroyed fences ; their fathers and brothers were 
gone, some to hateful imprisonment on Staten Island or 



in the prison hulks in New York harbor, some dead, some 
in the scattered patriot battalions among the hills. 

How appalling to them must have been the sight of 
this well-fed, perfectly-equipped, great overpowering King's 
army! How hopeless the contest must have seemed! 

With what bitter tears must they have beheld this 
climax of war after the long, sad years of midnight skir- 
mish, pillage and fire ! 

But Colonel Dayton did not stop to ponder or to de- 
spair. He hastened ahead of the invading army, sending 
the alarm everywhere. There were no telephones in Con- 
necticut Farms in those days, nor telegraphs anywhere, to 
bring the news ; and yet almost as quickly as by telegraph 
the news was spread. As soon as it was known that the 
enemy had landed at the Elizabeth Town Point, word was 
sent to Prospect Hill, back of Springfield, and the i8- 
pounder gun was fired, and the tar barrel on the signal pole 
on the First Mountain was set ablaze. This was seen at 
the camp at Morristown, ten miles away, and instantly the 
drums beat to arms, and Washington, with the army, 
marched with all speed towards Springfield. The whole 
town, which is now the County of Union, heard and saw 
the signals, and the militia of every hamlet, from Spring- 
field to Rahway, seized their guns and started for the front. 

It was Concord and Lexington over again. Knyp- 
hausen had hardly left the village of Elizabeth when he 
encountered a brisk bush-whacking fire from fences and 
woods and defiles, and he was never free from it again till 
he returned to Staten Island, two weeks later. 

General Maxwell was at that time in charge of the 
Jersey Brigade, a portion of which was stationed in and 
about Elizabeth, under Colonel Elias Dayton. But, as the 
General very frankly wrote a few days later : 

"I thought Elizabeth Town would be an improper 
place for me. I therefore retired toward Connecticut Farms, 
where Colonel Dayton joined me with his regiment. I 
ordered a few small parties to defend the defile near the 
Farms Meeting House, where they were joined and as- 



sisted in the defence by some small bodies of militia. The 
main body of the brigade had to watch the enemy on the 
road leading to the right and left toward Springfield, that 
they might not cut off our communication with His Ex- 
cellency, General- Washington." 

Here, then, at the defile south of the church, to be seen 
as plainly now as then, began the "Battle of Connecticut 
Farms." That, it seems to me, is the proper name to give 
to the operations of that day. At Elizabeth there was a 
skirmish, at Springfield the advance ended, but here, where 
we stand, and on the ridge to the west of us, the pitched 
battle was fought. 

At the defile, which lies here at our feet, the picket 
line held the British for three hours — a marvelous perform- 
ance when the relative forces are considered. Indeed, Gen- 
eral Maxwell says : "Our parties of Continental troops 
and militia at the defile performed wonders." After hold- 
ing the enemy for three hours, they actually crossed the 
defile and drove the British advance back a considerable 
distance, but on the arrival of large British reinforcements 
the Americans were, in turn, driven back to this ground, 
where ^Maxwell had formed his whole brigade and the 
militia into line of battle. Then occurred what General 
jMaxwell described as the closest action he had seen in 
this war. 

The lines of battle seem to have been drawn from near 
the Sleeker Inn southwesterly along the ridge to a point 
back of this church. ^Maxwell made a quick assault and 
drove back the British advance. In turn he was driven 
back by the greatly superior force of the enemy till he 
reached the Rahway River bridge at Springfield. There 
he made a stand, and, with the aid of some well-placed 
artillery, brought the invaders to a halt, and drove them 
back to their former position near this church. 

By this time Washington had arrived at Short Hills, 
and was in a position to reinforce General ]\Iaxwell so that 
the battle would be more equal. The British commander, 
on obser\-ing this, abandoned the fight, and prepared to 



retreat as soon as the darkness should cover his movements. ' 
The dozen houses at this place were filled with his wounded. 
In the evening these were removed, and the soldiers began 
their work of plunder, taking everything that was portable. 
As the troops began their retreat the houses and the church 
were set on fire and burned to the ground. 

Meantime occurred an act of such cruelty and horror 
as deeply affected the entire community, and, indeed, the 
story soon spread throughout the country and embittered 
against the soldiers of the King many who had before been 
lukewarm in the patriot cause. 

Mrs. Caldwell, bravely remaining with her two infants 
at the parsonage, had, during the afternoon, retired to her 
chamber for seclusion and prayer. Here a British soldier 
passing by saw her, and deliberately, at a few feet distance, 
in spite of her appeals, fired upon her through the window 
as she sat upon a bed with her little ones ; and so this pious 
and gracious lady, innocent of all offense, fell a martyr to 
the cause of liberty. A more melancholy and pathetic 
event is not recalled in the history of the Revolution. 

I have often admired the quaint old-fashioned, beauti- 
ful epitaph upon her tombstone. Nothing more appropri- 
ate can be said of her : 

"Stop, passenger ! Here lie the remains of a woman 
who exhibited to the world a bright constellation of the 
female virtues. On that memorable day, never to be for- 
gotten, when a British foe invaded this fair village and 
fired even the temple of the Diety, this peaceful daughter 
of Heaven retired to her hallowed apartment, imploring 
Heaven for the pardon of her enemies. In that sacred 
moment she was, by the bloody hand of a British ruffian, 
dispatched, like her Divine Redeemer, through a path of 
blood, to her long-wished for native skies." 

There was much in the course of the war that seemed 
to our people barbarous and cruel. Governor Livingston, 
in addressing the Legislature in 1777 upon the cruelty of 
the enemy, with his characteristic vigor, spoke of "the 
contemptible figure they make at present (that is, after 



Princeton and Trenton) and the disgust they have given 
to many of their own confederates by their more than Gothic 
ravages." He says: "The rapacity of the enemy was 
boundless ; their rapine was indiscriminate and their bar- 
barity unparalleled. They have plundered friends and 
foes. Effects capable of division they have divided ; such 
as were not, they have destroyed. They have warred upon 
decrepid age ; warred upon defenceless youth. They have 
committed hostilities against the possessors of literature 
and against ministers of religion ; against public records 
and , private monuments, and books of improvement and 
papers of curiosity ; and against the arts and sciences. They 
have butchered the wounded, asking for quarter, mangled 
the dying weltering in their blood; refused to the dead the 
rights of sepulture; suffered prisoners to parish for want 
of sustenance ; disfigured private dwellings of taste and ele- 
gance ; and, in the rage of impiety and barbarism, profaned 
edifices dedicated to Almighty God." 

We can see the worthy old Governor swelling with 
rage over his ruffled shirt bosom as he goes on after this 
fashion, filling page after page with his wrathful quill. 

In the same year the Committee of Congress, appointed 
to inquire into the conduct of the enemy, reported, "That 
in every place where the enemy had been there are heavy 
complaints of oppression, injury and insult suffered by the 
inhabitants * * >i= The whole track of the British army 
is marked with desolation and a wanton destruction of 
property * * * The fences destroyed, houses deserted, 
pulled to pieces or consumed by fire * * * But above 
all, places of worship, ministers, and other religious persons 
of some particular protestant denomination, seem to have 
been treated with the most rancorous hatred, and at the 
same time with the highest contempt." 

It does seem strange to us that it should have been 
thought necessary to burn churches and schools, but in 
those days that was the strategy of war of the kind Knyp- 
liausen waged. Three churches, two parsonages and an 
academy seems a pretty large record for one township. But 



Knyphausen seems to have deemed that foray lost wherein- 
he burned no Presbyterian Church. 

General Sherman once said: "War is cruelty; you 
cannot refine it." No truer word was ever spoken. We^ 
may be disposed to question it when we remember our 
Red-Cross hospitals, our kindness to prisoners, our cour- 
tesy to foes. But it is, and must be, forever true — war is 
cruelty. 

When, at Santiago, we smother and overwhelm a half 
dozen Spanish warships with a storm of shot and cover 
their decks with mangled wounded, gasping for breath 
amid the stifling poison gasses of modern high explosives 
till they finally fling themselves into the sea as a last des- 
perate chance to save their lives, does it refine war to pull 
the survivors out of the water, clothe and feed them, and 
send them home in comfort ? No ; those courtesies are the 
refinements of peace after men have ceased to fight. While 
war and battle last, they are as cruel and relentless as ever, 
and more destructive and deadly. 

Excesses and wrongs are bound to occur so long as 
men engage in the horrible game of killing each other. So 
we will accept Governor Livingston's statements as gen- 
erally true, but yet with some allowance, and will remember 
that we were on the border-line between the foes, where 
retaliations and provocations were very common. The 
situation of the people was peculiarly unfortunate, and 
subjected them to ills not ordinarily suffered, even in the 
warfare of the Eighteenth Century. 

A word as to Governor William Livingston, one of 
the most notable citizens who has ever lived in your present 
Township of Union. 

He was a fiery old patriot, distinguished as a fighter, not 
only with his sword, but with his pen and his tongue, which 
were sharper than any two-edged sword. He had removed 
from New York to this township (sensible man that he was) 
fifteen years before the Revolution, and in 1772 had built 
for his home Liberty Hall. That fine old mansion still 
stands, and is now the home of our worthy Senator, the 



10 



Honorable John Kean. He was a member of the first 
Continental Congress in 1774; he was foremost in stirring 
up the Xew Jersey people to resistance at the time of the 
Boston Tea Party troubles. He was one of the Committee 
of Observation,- elected with great enthusiasm at Elizabeth 
Town, in December, 1774. (This committee, to put it 
briefly, was the beneficent "ring" which ran ever}1;hing and 
ruled ever}1:hing in the Town with a firm hand during the 
Revolutionary War to the immense advantage of the Town.) 
He was made Brigadier-General in charge of all the New 
Jersey militia in 1776, and the same year was chosen by the 
Legislature to be the first Governor of the State of New 
Jersey, which office he held for fourteen years. 

The British commander seems to have been particularly 
desirous to take Livingston, dead or alive, but the old Gov- 
ernor and his clever daughters were too sly for them, and 
he never was taken. But I believe Senator Kean can still 
show in Liberty Hall the marks of Hessian bayonets thrust 
into the panels and stairways by disappointed scouting 
parties sent out to catch the Governor. No more zealous 
and uncompromising patriot than William Livingston joined 
the Revolutionists. By education and experience, and by 
his native abilities, he was fitted to be a leader, which he 
speedily became ; and he gave all his powers and all he had, 
unreservedly, to the cause of American Independence. 

At 10 o'clock in the dark night of June 7th the British 
army, in silence, retreated from this spot. Lieutenant 
IMathew, of the Coldstream Guards, who wrote an accoimt 
of it, says : "Nothing more awful than this retreat can be 
imagined. The rain, with the terrible thunder and light- 
ning, the darkness of the night, the houses of Connecticut 
Farms, which he had set fire to, in a blaze, the dead bodies 
which the light of the fire or the lightning showed you now 
and then on the road, and the dread of an enemy, com- 
pleted the scene of horror." 

Two weeks later the army came again, halted at this 
point, divided into two columns, and again advanced, but 
were baffled just beyond Springfield, whose church and 

II 



homes they burned. Then it was that the bereaved Parson 
Caldwell took a personal hand in the fight, and flung the 
psalm books to the soldiers for wadding, crying : "Put Watts 
into 'em, boys ; give them Watts !" 

The action of June, 1780, was, of course, the culmina- 
tion of the war for this hamlet ; but the trials of the people 
who lived here endured through seven long years. Their 
fathers and sons were summoned month after month and 
year after year, whenever dangers or alarms thickened. The 
discouraging news of failures and defeats had to be borne ; 
hostilities were suspended and resumed over and over again, 
like a fire stamped out a dozen times and breaking into a 
blaze again with every hour of the weary night. 

A struggle, apparently hopeless, had still to be persevered 
in. The men of this place stood fast. Patience became 
their habit, and their fortitude grew to be absolutely re- 
liable. The tribulations that had so long fallen upon them 
tempered and wrought them as a hammer on beaten steel, 
till at last, when the day of their home battle came, they 
could (in the words of General Maxwell) "work wonders." 
So we are not surprised to find, on Knyphausen's 
second advance to Springfield, on the 23d of July, these 
same militiamen in the thick of the fray. Major-General 
Greene, in command of the regulars of the Continental Army 
on that day, had also the assistance of the farmers of this hill- 
side, and in his report repeatedly refers to them. He 
says : "The militia * * * made a spirited attack upon 
one of the enemy's flanking parties," After the burning 
of Springfield the enemy retreated. "Captain Davis," he 
says, "with a large body of militia, fell upon their rear and 
flanks, and kept up a continual fire upon them till they 
entered Elizabeth Town, which place they reached about 
sunset." Think of it ! A "continual fire" for a chase of 
six miles. General Greene adds that those who were en- 
gaged "behaved with great coolness and intrepidity, and 
the whole of them discovered an impatience to be brought 

12 



into action. The good order and discipline which they 
exhibited in all their movements do them the highest 
honor." 

Here we h^ve it — so trained to endurance and patience 
that when the battle came they were positively impatient 
to get into the thick of it. Mere numbers could not subdue 
such men. Doubtful or hesitating at the opening of the 
war, questioning what all this rebellion against the King 
might lead to, and not understanding fully the justifica- 
tion of it, these plain, practical, conservative farmers had 
finally learned, through long experience of abuses and 
troubles, through the clear sounding tones of Caldwell's 
teaching, and the loud and belligerent, but always forcible 
and convincing, voice of Livingston, that absolute inde- 
pendence of the King and the right to set up rulers of their 
own free choice, was what they were fighting for and must 
have. 

And with this clearer view and more determined pur- 
pose came higher appreciation of their own duty and des- 
tiny as free electors of a free state. They laid hold on the 
new doctrine, to us old and commonplace, but to them fresh 
and inspiring, for it was then new in the world, the doc- 
trine of the dignity and importance of the individual man, 
and his right to an equal voice with all other men in the 
government, and to an equal opportunity to enjoy his life, 
liberty and property. His very humanity gave him a title 
to a prospect and an inheritance that inspired him to no- 
bility. The man who could accept this new faith was a 
new creature. Chains could never again bind him. No 
hardship of fortune could ever rob him of his vision of 
liberty. He had become a patriot, to live or to die. And 
yet, while the prospect exalted him, the responsibility of it 
sobered him. He was a soldier, but a citizen first of all. 

So when the battle was over, and peace came, with- 
out a day's intermission, he laid down his rifle and resumed 
his plough. But he was not the same man. Chastened, 
hafdened, instructed, inspired, he was now the strong man, 
the veteran soldier, the enthusiastic patriot. On him rested 

13 



the hopes of the future of the State, and those hopes were 
not disappointed. His sons, and his sons' sons, were Hke 
him, and when wars and troubles came again, a like spirit 
was found in them. When the supreme test of the Re- 
public came in civil war, his children, like him, fought 
nobly, and after the fight was over, a million of them 
dropped their guns and took up their scythes faithfully and 
simply, and helped to reap and stow away the harvest that 
was ripening while they as yet had been on the battlefield. 

God grant that such men, with such motives and such 
fidelity to the common duties of life, may never be wanting 
to fight the battles of this Republic. 




JOURNAJEv PRESS, ELIZABETH, N. J. 



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